Little Beehive

Tuesday May 12th 2015

Things can change on a dime here.  Weather can change quickly, your plans can even more so.  This morning, I woke up at around 12pm, and was in a car up to go hiking an hour later.  Very impromptu.

In general, Lake Louise the town is a very scenic place.  There's trees all around, there's still some snow on the ground at this time of year, even some squirrels and birds I've never seen anywhere else.  Lake Lake, the lake is a beauty.  It was still mostly frozen when we walked along it to get to the hike, but it was nice, almost majestic.  We had to walk along the lake, exchanging pleasantries with various tourists and overall getting pumped up for the hike.  Which was no joke.  At this time of year, there was a lot of snow on the trail, so the start of the trail had some packed snow/ice.  The lanes were fairly wide, but because of the snow you wouldn't really stray off a narrow path within that lane just for safety.  That would set the tone for the rest of the hike.

The road to halfway wasn't too bad.  The snow/ice compacted on the trail was annoying, a burden, but it wasn't hike-breaking yet.  You get kinda used to it, you learn where to put your feet so you minimize slipping.  Halfway was this smaller lake called Mirror Lake.  This too was frozen, but supposedly when the snow melts, the lake mirrors Big Beehive, another bigger hike.

The second half of the lake was brutal.  I guess for some scientific reason, the snow hasn't melted as much so there was more snow to trek through, and it wasn't very packed so everyone slipped and fell in to snow banks all the way up.  I have all these small random cuts and scrapes from taking a step and having my foot fall 2 feet into snow.  And there was a lot of it.  Very tough hiking, none of us were really prepared for this, we were all wearing shorts, runing shoes.  Definitely should have brought some boots and pants.  Gloves too would have been helpful, just for pulling yourself out of snow.

After around two hours, we made it to the peak.  It was very nice, you could see the Chateau Fairmont, Deer Lodge, the Trans-Canada highway, the village, the lake itself, we were quite high up.  We took a few pictures, enjoyed the peak but it got windy and a little bit scary.  Very nice view, I'm sure it'll look amazing when the snow melts too.

The way down wasn't as bad as I thought it would be considering all the snow.  No one really wiped out, although it was wquickly getting cold.  Not a lot of sun could make it through to the trail, too many surrounding trees and mountain to block it out.  But we made it down alright.  Tired, wet socks/shoes and scratched, but alright.  And it was a great hike.  Would definitely do it again when the snow is dealt with, or maybe sooner with some more suitable gear.  

A day off well spent.

Cheers,

Aaron